ARTH 101 Quiz 2

(2) Nanette Solomon: "Making a World of Difference: Gender, Asymmetry and the Greek Nude."

Ok, lets look at the Praxiteles Knidian Aphrodite from a feminist perspective. (Lets not and say we did!). FIRST monumental female cult statue to be completely NUDE (mid fourth century BCE) First with her "hand over the pubis" ---THE PUDICA POSE "Hailed as the most popular of all statues in antiquity"—copied a lot According to the Author: " My goals in this paper are to render visible, or rather reinstate to vision the political significance of the visual language of this lost but all important work; to underscore the sculptures work in the ongoing construction of female sexuality, and to make clear the power relationships inherent in terms of that sexuality." (oki) So, "while some scholars of classical antiquities have begun to address the Knidia as a gender problem, for the most part, it is treated with the same litany of stories and explanations that block/obstruct the political implications of the PUDICA pose. We must move against the "gentlemanly" agreement to continually remove the artistic female nude from conscious consideration as a dynamic component in establishing power relations expressed in sexual terms." (WFT?) "The continued and incessant idealization of female HUMILITATION in the Western tradition from 340 BCE to the present is the real subject of this paper..." (hmmmmm....is she saying the pose is humiliating to women? Lets see...) INNOVATION: Lets consider the innovative aspects of the Knidian Aphrodite. So the MALE nude dominated the Athenian artistic avant garde in the Archiac and Classical periods, The Knidian Aphrodite marks the introduction of female nudes. (hmmm she refers to it as "the self-conscious female nude"). The Prax Knid Aphro was created at least three centuries AFTER the introduction of the monumental male nude statue." Male statues were idealized, athletic, youthful and nude...women were "draped." Males were portrayed as coherent and rational from within and female figures as attractive from without (an "external surface for decoration"). Author refers to the male statues a KOUROI and women statues as KORUI ---Differences in arm positions --- men have arms to the side and clenched fists, women have arm across their breast or outstretched offering something. Men as athletic or heroic, women as "glorifed handmaidens". Even in literature, "women were LESS THAN men." Homosexuality was ok and it is evident in the idealization of the male nude, youthful and beautiful---such as Adonis and Apollo. And, the focus was on the whole body, not the male genitals...not so with the women! The early depictions of women with "WET DRAPERY" (Ie the Nike), then come Prax Aphrodite---completely nude and "self-conscious nakedness"---ie with the hand covering her pubis.---ACCORDING TO THE AUTHOR: "In contrast to the heroic, unselfconscious nudity of Hermes, the Knida, more NAKED THAN NUDE, is sexually coded by the ambiversive placement of her right hand in front of her pubis." Women were more "sexually fetishized and this provides the basis for unequal power relations." INFLUENCE "Whether the female nude is portrayed covering her pubis or pointing to it, the result is the same---we are directed to her pubis which we are not permitted to see." "Woman is reduced in a humiliated way to her sexuality." These works affect expectations and evaluations of real women. The Buttocks also contributes to the sexualized objectification and diminishes her power. HMMMM...The Word "PUDICA" means Shame Or Modesty---that is the word used to describe the act of covering the pubis with the hand. So, anyway---The Knida was copied endlessly over the years, but the idea of Shame (rather than a source of pride in their fertility) continued. Note as well that the Knidia is "first and foremost a producer of desire"----by having the hand placed over the pubis, this "device" "creates a sense of desire in the viewer"---"These acts are not to be confused with private acts of sexual behavior. They are rather the publically displayed appreciation for the totally sexualized female form." (WELL ISN'T THAT SPECIAL).

(6) Jas Elsner: "Perspectives in Art" (This is another long and nasty article with more of an overview than a POINT)

SYNOPSIS: Constantine ruled longer than any other Roman emperor after Augustus. The changes inaugurated in his Principate were arguably still greater and longer lasting for European history even than those instigated by his illustrious predecessor. In the visual arts, my subject here, developments under Constantine can be seen from more than one perspective. In one sense they represent a moment of major transformation in the history of art: the state began actively to sponsor the architecture and imagery of Christianity and thus to put the force of the establishment behind changes in image-making that would culminate in the move from pagan to Christian art and the (not wholly unrelated) move from the practices and aesthetics of Graeco-Roman art to those of the early Middle Ages. This latter is a long process, beginning well before Constantine's reign and ending perhaps as late as the sixth century. It is a process which some have attributed to the internal dynamics within Roman imagemaking and others to the influence of external traditions of art, especially from the Near East. From a narrower perspective, the images produced in Constantine's reign allowed for significant innovations within the dynamics of imperial propagation of Roman state art. The arch of Constantine is the first surviving public monument to boast that eclecticism of styles and that juxtaposition of diverse of objects from different periods which was to become common during the early and High Middle Ages. These appeared in such diverse contexts as church buildings, jeweled display crosses and gilded gospel covers containing fragments from antiquity, from Byzantium, and from Islam displayed in contemporary settings. Moreover, in juxtaposing fourth-century friezes depicting Constantine's recent victories over Maxentius with the near canonical victories of Trajan and Marcus over the Dacians and the northern barbarians and with the hunting feats of Hadrian, the makers of the arch appear to have seized on the kinds of typology developed in the same period to brilliant effect in Christian art. This is not Christian typology - with its correspondences of Old and New Testament themes - of the sort that would come to dominate Christian art in the Middle Ages and indeed even in the Constantinian period, but it is the same method applied to the relations of past and present in Roman imperial history and ideology. The Imperial Image Huge claims have been made for the portraiture of Constantine - the radical, even unprecedented, ways in which it changed over the period of his reign and its innovative qualities in relation to earlier Tetrarchic imagery. In the Tetrarchic visual culture within which Constantine had grown up, the imperial portrait both on coins and in stone sculpture had taken on an iconic quality. BEFORE: The emperor was figured in a geometric, even an abstract form, whose schematism might be said to emphasize the office over the individuality of its holder. With square head, cropped hair, moustache and beard he looks every bit the mid-thirties commander he was when he assumed the throne But LATER - especially in the coins struck at Trier, his own imperial capital - a new portrait type emerged which might be defined as mature but youthful, on the model of Augustus. The characteristic nose and large eyes that appear in both coins and portrait heads imply a personal individuality in which that charisma resided (in contrast with the Tetrarchs. Likewise, Constantine appears fully frontal - like the other late Tetrarchs Maxentius and Licinius - in military dress but with a nimbus. Here the military emphasis is replaced by an inspired regal grandeur. The Imperial Programme: Public Art and Court Culture The most striking aspect of Constantine's public monumental programme today is his building of churches in Rome, Palestine, Antioch, and Constantinople. In his own time, however, arguably the most impressive gesture was the founding of a new capital at Constantinople. Both these undertakings had major effects in marking the novelty of the reign's affiliations - a new religion, or perhaps an idiosyncratic cult specially favoured within the mass of polytheistic religions, and a new conceptual centre for the empire in situating its capital so far to the east. Very little survives of what might be called the court art of the imperial dynasty. But the imposing scale of the figures, their relative frontality, and the lack of interest in background as well as a focus on adornment, jewellery, and conspicuous display on the part of the female figures nonetheless illustrate at least some aspects of elite taste in the period. Art and Religion The Constantinian policy on religious toleration clearly took the brake off artistic development in a Christian religious context. Not only in the churches - sponsored by the imperial family and increasingly by local elites and the clergy - but also in more humble commissions like the painted rooms of catacombs or marble sarcophagi, Christian themes were developed with an invention and panache impossible before. Under Constantine, there appears to have been a broad tolerance in which - just about for the last time in the Roman world - the numerous cults which together made up Roman religious"pluralism" could indulge in a kind of visual competition in both providing decorated ambiences for their adherents and in potentially using images to attract converts from among the other religions. Conclusion: The Chimaera of Decline? In studying the arts under Constantine we must inevitably bring to bear a series of more or less explicit assumptions and presuppositions about the "long view." These include, first, the fundamental question of whether one prefers the classical naturalism of the bulk of Graeco-Roman art to the more abstract schematism of medieval art, of which the arts under Constantine were a harbinger - or vice versa. Second, there is the deep and in a post- Christian culture still unavoidable issue of one's Christian investments, or their opposite, and of whether the Christianisation inaugurated by Constantine was more or less of a good thing. Not wholly separate from this is the complex issue of the extent to which Constantine had a Christian programme.

(4) Caitlin Barrett: "Recontextualizing Nilotic Scenes: Interactive Landscapes in the Garden of the Casa Dell Efebo Pompeii" (41 pages of hell---I don't think he will choose this one...I hope not)

SYNOPSIS: Despite long-standing scholarly interest in Roman "Aegyptiaca," much work remains to be done to contextualize Egyptian or Egyptian-style material culture found in domestic settings. This need is especially pressing for "Nilotic scenes," or wall paintings and mosaics depicting the Nile. While previous studies have identified general areas in ancient houses where such imagery was common, many questions remain open concerning the relationships between these Egyptian landscapes and their surrounding architectural installations, decorative ensembles, and artifactual assemblages. THIS PAPER STUDIES the frescoes from the garden triclinium of the Casa dell'Efebo, Pompeii, as a case study in the recontextualization of "Nilotica." In contrast to older interpretations emphasizing Isis cult or anti-Egyptian stereotypes, a contextual analysis of this garden installation suggests new possibilities. Even as the Egyptian landscapes introduce a seemingly exotic element into domestic space, other aspects of the garden setting familiarize and domesticate the imagery. Simultaneously far away and familiar, the imagined landscapes of the garden transform domestic space into a microcosm of oikoumene and encourage viewers to engage in multiple possible ways with changing constructions of imperial, local, and cultural identities. The Niloctic frescoes from the outdoor triclinium in the Garden of the Casa Dell Efebo in Pompeii provide a data-rich case study---these painting provide some of the most extensive and detailed depictions of the Nile. Theses paintings provide some of the most extensive and detailed depictions of the Nile from Pompeii. HMMM...many scenes include pygmy-like figures engaging in seemingly odd behaviors such as fighting with river beast, drinking, and carousing or engaging in public SEX! They have difference building types (temples, baths, tombs) but most often DOMESTIC CONTEXTS...GARDENS... The Casa Dell Efebo Frescoes provide examples of practically every motif attested in Roman Nilotic scenes...the river is in flood, as indicated by blooming lotuses and the irrigation of the fields. Egyptian floras and fauna include crocodiles, a hippo, ibises, plans and lotuses. The riverine landscape is filled with religious activity....Theme of sexual activity, musical performance and alcohol consumption on the riverbanks are also prominent. FINALLY, the physical features of the people in these frescos resemble those of ACHONDROPLASTIC DWARFS---large head, short limbs and stocky bodies (PYGMIES). Also some dark skinned people. Older studies often interpreted Nilotic imagery as expressing either Roman interest in Egyptian cults or Roman stereotypes about Egyptian culture. However, THIS contextual analysis of the Casa Dell Efebo garden destabilizes both these readings and opens up additional possibilities for meaning. Even as the Egyptian landscapes introduce a seemingly exotic element into domestic space, other aspects of the garden setting familiarize and domesticate the imagery. SO then the article has PAGES of description of the Casa Dell Efebo and its garden...IT MIGHT MAKE MORE SENSE TO SKIM THE ARTICLE AND LOOK AT THE PICTURES AND DIAGRAMS ON PAGE 296-327.---I AM JUST NOT SURE WHAT IS IMPORTANT!!!! EPIC FAIL ON THIS ARTICLE.

(5) Philip Souza; "War, Slavery and Empire in Roman Imperial Iconography

SYNOPSIS: This paper considers representations of defeated enemies as captives in Roman Military art of the imperial period. It will argue that they are a prominent and distinctive motif this is a result of the particular emphasis that the Romans placed on the taking of prisoner, principally for enslavement, as a legitimate aim in warfare. It will argue that, although Roman art derived much of its imagery from Greek sources, similar images of captives and enslavement were relatively rare in Greek art, because Greek art placed far less emphasis on enslavement as an aim of warfare. In contrast, those who commissioned the main examples of commemorative art considered in this paper maintained, throughout the period of the Principáte and beyond, a strong preference for artistic motifs that celebrated the acquisitive side of warfare, especially in human terms. Explanations will be sought for this feature of Roman commemorative art both in terms of Roman attitudes to war, imperialism, enslavement, and in terms of a general characteristic of the commemorative art of ancient imperial cultures. It is widely accepted that, as well as the forms, many of the artistic motifs in Roman imperial culture are derived from or were heavily influenced by Classical and Hellenistic Greek art. Images of warriors and warfare were commonplace in Greek art of the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods. Although there are not many surviving examples of Archaic public or monumental art, it does NOT NOT NOT appear, however, that captives or prisoners were a regular motif. The main types of private art, such as painted pottery and tomb paintings, often show vanquished enemies, but they are depicted as warriors, not as captives. For the Classical and Hellenistic periods we have many more examples public and private art, but the same general observations are valid. Among the many thousands of images of warfare that have survived from these periods, while battle scenes are common, the subsequent capture and enslavement of prisoners is not a significant motif in the Classical or Hellenistic Greek iconography. (SO—VERY LITTLE CAPTURED SLAVES IN GREEK ART) THE ROMANS WERE DIFFERENT!! In their wars with the Hellenistic Greeks, the Romans exhibited an attitude toward prisoners, developed during the conquest of Italy that differed significantly from the common values of their Greek allies and opponents. Roman treatment of those whom they had captured, or had surrendered to them, was characterized by an insistence that the act of surrender implied an unconditional acceptance of the Roman people's right to decide their fate. The Romans have a reputation among modern scholars as one of the most aggressive and warlike communities in the ancient Mediterranean. Mass enslavements were characteristic of Roman campaigns. As Rome's wealth and power increased, Roman generals commemorated their successful campaigns by paying for the erection of trophies, temples and other memorials to their achievements....the MOTIF of the captured enemy is particularly striking features of Roman monumental art from the time of Augustus. The presence of subjugated prisoners serves to make the image of victory complete. OK OK I GET IT...many Roman war artifacts show SLAVES/PRISONERS captured in battle! It was very important to them and raised their status among the people. Humiliate your defeated enemy!! Be bold and ferocious. Make people beg for mercy---all this is shown in the Roman commemorative art of the imperial period. "The iconography of subjugation and enslavement in warfare that can be seen in Roman monumental art of the imperial period should how comfortable the Romans were in exercising their power over the bodies of their defeated enemies."

(3) Andrew Steward "The Nike of Samothrace: Another View"

THERE NEEDS TO BE A RE-EXAMINATION OF THE DATE AND PURPOSE OF THIS STATUE. Reasons for the Reexamination: 1.The recent conservation and reinstallation of the Nike of Samothrace 2. the restudy of its archaeological context and petrology 3. the collapse of the consensus that it celebrated the Rhodian naval victories 4. the growing accord among naval historians that its ship is not a trihemiolia, WHY SHOULD IT BE RE_EXAMINED: The monument itself offers three significant clues that indicated that the prior view of the time period, the sculptor, and purpose of the statute are wrong:, First, why was it dedicated on the remote island of Samothrace, and not, for example, on independent Delos? Second, although ancient galleys could not fight in gales and never did, why is it battling one? And third, why is its ship made of imported Rhodian marble and probably a quadrireme, a vessel superseded elsewhere by the quinquereme but still favored by the Rhodians? (well, IDK?) OLD VIEW: A proposal by Hermann Thiersch in 1931 and Karl Lehmann's reexcavation and graphic reconstruction of the Nike's context in 1950 and 1973, respectively, created a broad consensus about the Nike monument and its dedicator, authorship, and date. It was agreed that it stood in a fountain-like structure datable to the early second century B.C.E. by its context pottery. Probably dedicated by the Rhodians after their victories off Side and Cape Myonessos in 190, and contemporary with the Great Altar of Pergamon (at that time often dated to the 180s), it may have been carved by the distinguished Rhodian sculptor Pythokritos. NEW VIEW: This consensus has now collapsed. The so-called Nike Fountain is nothing of the sort; its surviving walls are Roman, with Early Imperial pottery stratified behind them; and its Hellenistic phase is equivocal (open or enclosed?), fragmentary, and its pottery unstratified and undiagnostic. Moreover, why dedicate such a monument on Samothrace, which until 168 was under Macedonian domination, when its natural site would have been independent Delos? SO WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE NIKE OF SAM: The Nike monument itself offers three significant clues: (repeated from emphasis) 1. It was dedicated in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods. As Burkert once bluntly concluded from the texts of such dedications, their "main function . . . [was] to save the worshippers from the perils of the sea." 2. Alone of Hellenistic Nikai, this one is truly storm tossed, battling a veritable tempest. Her clothing alternately presses against her body, crisscrosses it like ocean breakers, and streams out behind it like a giant rudder Yet ancient galleys could not fight even in moderate winds and seas, and never did. 3. Whereas the Nike herself is carved from pure white Parian marble, her ship, its base, and the ex-signature block all conspicuously are made of blue-gray lithos lartios. Imported from Rhodes, more than 500 km away against the prevailing winds and seas, this Lartian stone was standard there for statue bases (ship monuments included) but is unknown outside the Dodecanese—with this unique exception. SO.....Basically this Author (Andy Stewart) does not think that the Nike of Samothrace was constructed to celebrate a Rhodain navel victory in 190 BCE. He questions whether the sculptor was Pin fact Pythokiritos , even though a block with his signature was found nearby. He casts doubt on the notion that is was a victory monument (ie a NIKE) as originally thought.

(1) Keesling: "Finding the Gods, Greek and Cypriot Votive Kourai Revisited"

(a) What are Greek Votive Statues: Freestanding statues of Marble or Bronze dedicated in sanctuaries and often inscribed with the name of a Dedicator and sometimes epigrams resembling prayers from the Dedicator to a Deity. Inscription on the Statute base. (1)Votive Statutes were agalmata—OFFERINGS MEANT TO PLEASE THE GODS. (2)But, rather than small offerings, the Votive Statutes were LARGE and often place outdoors rather than in temples or other buildings (b)Greek Votive Statutes had a relatively short period of prominence in Archaic and Classical period---eventually declined and replaced with portraits. Why did it come to just an abrupt end??? (1) Search for the answer to that question has led in two directions-One path requires consideration of the "distribution and significance of Greek sculpture in and ARCHAISTIC style, found in various parts of the Greek work in the Classical, Hellenistic and Roman Periods. OTHER PATH Leads to Cyprus, "Where limestone Kouroi and Korai in an Archaic style continued to be dedication in sanctuaries from the Arcaic through the Hellenistic periods" THE ACROPOLIS KORAI The central problem posed they the Kore type in Archaic Greek sculpture is encapsulated the Table (in the reading) which summarizes the "full spectrum of interpretations of these statutes. At ONE end of the spectrum is the view that the Acropolis Korai represented Human portrait subjects (women and girls mostly) AT THE OTHER END (the DEVINE end)—"most of the Acropolis Koria were intended to represent the goddess ATHENA herself. (Keesling, the author likes this view---but most scholars fall in the middle of the two ends of the spectrum—interpreting the Koria as "anonymous or generalized female companions designed to please the recipient goddess Athena. Problem in this study of the Korai is determining "how much of the iconographic variation is MEANINGFUL variation?" Hard for scholars to tell what attributes of the Koria are true signifiers of identity and which are not, for example, the clothing and the veils---do these help identify the figures as women/girls or goddesses? SO, THE BIG QUESTION FOR THIS AUTHOR IS TRYING PROVE THAT THE ACROPOLIS KORIA ARE DEVINE IMAGES AND NOT HUMANS. CYPRIOT KORAI Cypriot votive sculpture in limestone has been cited often as a parallel of the dedication of votary figures in Greek sanctuaries in the Arcahic Period. These figures closely resemble the Greek ones in dress and pose, but have more elaborate jewelry and headgear, as well as fruits, flowers, birds and bulls. These are more likely Gods and Goddesses—Devine Representations. CONCLUSIONS "Ancient Greek representations of the gods in every period was a complex cultural phenomenon that defies simplistic explanations. In this paper, I have discussed one of the most problematic realms of divine representation in Greek art, namely marble votive statutes in the Archaic style, and compared the Greek practice of dedicating Kore statutes in sanctuaries, best represented on the Athenian Acropolis, with the longer lived Cypriot votive statute tradition. Both Greek and Cypriot statures of the kore type raise the SAME QUESTION—THEY ARE UNDOUBTEDLY IMAGES FOR THE GODS, BUT ARE THEY ALSO IMAGES OF THE GODS?" [Author leans toward calling them Devine Images---she says: "The viewer of a Greek votive statue expected and continued to expect to see a god unless informed otherwise by iconography or context." Since many could not read the inscriptions, they had to read the statute.